A socio-political and cultural blog from the Republic of Ireland. The truth about the Celtic Tiger, it's demise and other related matters. Fír-eolas ar an Tíogar Cheiltigh, a thurnamh agus nithe gaolmhara eile.

Mutti Merkel's CDU party in last Sunday's state election, returning to

power SPD leader Hannelore Kraft and her Green/Alliance90 coalition

partners with a governing majority and endorsing Kraft's expansionist

State Budget which triggered the election when the CDU oposition

voted against it.

Merkel’s CDU slumped to 26% in the election compared to 39%
for

Kraft’sSocial Democrats, bringing Kraft to national
prominence and

showing that voters are ready to accept robust challenges to
the Austerity

Mania and necronomics of the now defunct and discredited
Merkozy era.

"The defeat is bitter and it really hurts," said
the CDU's main contender Norbert Röttgen, who is also Merkel's Environment
minister. He had faced off against Kraft in the poll, which was triggered after
the minority state government unexpectedly fell when the regional parliament
failed to pass a draft budget after just 22 months in power. Kraft had argued
the need for public savings and focused on jobs, education and nursery places,
while Roettgen took aim at the SPD contender for clocking up public debt. Röttgen's
campaign ran into trouble when he failed to commit to staying in opposition in
the region if he lost Sunday's vote. He later had to backtrack after reportedly
irking party allies by saying the NRW vote was a referendum on Merkel's policy
on Europe.

The Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper said Kraft had won over
people with her social policy.

"That she further increased the deficit despite growing
revenues, people did not hold against her, quite the opposite. Obviously, the
message from Düsseldorf to Berlin, is that the citizens are tired of the drive
for consolidation," it said. The vote was the third regional election in
Germany in eight weeks and comes only a week after Merkel's centre-right coalition
lost power in the state of Schleswig -Holstein.

"Hannelore Kraft is a Merkel in red," wrote the
Frankfurter Rundschau. Although their political positions on debt are polar
opposites - unlike Merkel, Kraft doesn't have a problem with the government
getting into debt. According to the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung in Heidelberg, Kraft
has the potential be able to reconnect her party to its traditional values and
grassroots ideals of social equality. Kraft "just might be the one to
strengthen the Social Democrats belief in their own values. Since Sunday in NRW
the SPD has become a party of mass appeal once again."

The SPD has echoed calls by Hollande to place more emphasis
on growth in the fiscal pact and Merkel, who needs a two-thirds majority in
parliament to ratify the fiscal pact, will therefore need opposition support. "We put people at the centre," the SPD's incumbent
state premier Hannelore Kraft said, who looked set to form another coalition
with the ecologist Green Party but, this time, with a majority.

HOLLANDE ARRIVES IN BERLIN

President Hollande arrived in Berlin today, just
hours after being sworn in as new French president – something Merkel
campaigned against, having had a close working relationship with his
predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy. Diplomatic niceties were observed but, at the
press conference when their first official meeting had ended, Hollande shocked
Merkel by announcing confirmation and extension of his agenda on renegotiation
of the Austerity Treaty and that “everything will be on the table” at the EU council
meeting on May 23rd next week.

A central plank of
Hollande’s election campaign was to put a brake on the austerity measures in
the fiscal pact, and to add a growth element to it – something Merkel has
previously categorically ruled out. Merkel's political position in Germany is now considerably weakened

as she needs SPD support in the Bundestag to get the Austerity Treaty ratified, support which is not forthcoming as the SPD is waiting to see what concessions Hollande can now get from

the EU Council meeting next week.

In only two weeks since the French elections, tables have
turned with a vengeance against the former dominant Merkozy agenda resulting in
sheer panic and disarray in the “Yes” campaign in the Irish referendum due on
May 31. Austerity is now a dirty word in the public discourse here which has heated up
significantly this week.

support to Greece in resolving its problems within the EU and Eurozone.

This is just one example of the lies and deliberate misrepresentation of events in favour of the YES side in the forthcoming referendum here on the Austerity Treaty being propagandised by RTE News on a daily basis.